Basketball was invented by
Springfield College teacher
James Naismith in 1891. It seemed to take off in the
Southern colleges in 1906, when
Yale's basketball team traveled throughout the South. That year Georgia Tech organized a small basketball club under Coach Chapman. Tech lost to
Auburn in the first college basketball game played in Atlanta, and won the two other games they played that season, against rival
Georgia. Tech organized another basketball team, under famous coach
John Heisman, also Tech's
baseball and
football coach. Heisman had a winning percentage of .142 that season and improved the team's percentage to .500 in 1912 and 1913.
John Hyder Coach John Hyder, whose teams won 292 games in 22 seasons, put the program on the national map when his 1955 team defeated
Adolph Rupp's
Kentucky team, ending the Wildcats' 129-game winning streak at home. The Yellow Jackets played their first
NCAA tournament game in 1960. Led by all-American
Roger Kaiser, the team defeated
Ohio University before losing in the second round to the eventual champion,
Ohio State. Hyder continued to have strong teams in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1964, Georgia Tech's final season in the Southeastern Conference, the team went undefeated at home and was the conference runner-up. In 1971 the Yellow Jackets, led by
Rich Yunkus, reached the finals of the
National Invitation Tournament but lost to the
University of North Carolina. Georgia Tech became a charter member of the
Metro Conference in 1975 (the first season started in 1976), and then became the eighth member of the
Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) in 1978 (starting play in 1979). As of the 2020–21 season, the Yellow Jackets have won four
ACC tournament championships and been the ACC's top seed twice. Through 2021, Georgia Tech has received 17 berths in the NCAA tournament, and seven of its teams have made it to the
Sweet Sixteen.
Bobby Cremins The
1985 team, led by head coach
Bobby Cremins and players
Mark Price,
Duane Ferrell,
Yvon Joseph,
Craig Neal,
Bruce Dalrymple, and
John Salley, won the school's first ACC championship and advanced to the final eight in the NCAA tournament.
Tom Hammonds earned
Rookie of the Year honors in the ACC in 1986. In the
1990 tournament, the trio of
Kenny Anderson,
Dennis Scott, and
Brian Oliver (nicknamed "
Lethal Weapon 3") carried the
Yellow Jackets all the way to the
Final Four, where they lost to eventual champion
UNLV in the national semi-finals. In 1992, Cremins led an inexperienced Tech team to the
Sweet 16, thanks in no small part to
James Forrest's buzzer-beating game-winning three-pointer in the second round against
USC. The following year, the Yellow Jackets won the
ACC tournament. Georgia Tech's nine consecutive appearances in the NCAA Tournament from the mid-1980s and the early 1990s accounted for the nation's fourth-longest active streak before it ended in 1994. In 1996, the team finished first in the ACC's regular season and returned to the tournament behind future
NBA All-Star Stephon Marbury. In 1998,
Matt Harpring was third-team All-American. Cremins's 19-year tenure (1981–2000) stands as the team's most successful era. Cremins is Georgia Tech's all-time winningest coach and is third among all ACC coaches. Upon his retirement after the 1999–2000 season, his teams had won 354 games and lost 237 for a .599 winning percentage (Cremins would later come out of retirement to coach at the
College of Charleston). The floor at
McCamish Pavilion is named "Cremins Court" in his honor.
Paul Hewitt In 2000, head coach
Paul Hewitt was hired away from
Siena College and immediately helped to revitalize the Yellow Jacket program. In his first season, Georgia Tech beat UCLA, Kentucky and five ACC rivals that were ranked en route to an NCAA tournament appearance. Georgia Tech experienced a
Cinderella season in 2003–04: winning the
Preseason NIT, ending
Duke's 41-game winning streak at
Cameron Indoor Stadium, making it to the school's second
Final Four and first national championship game, in which they lost by nine points to
UConn. Notable players sent to the
NBA under Hewitt include
Chris Bosh,
Jarrett Jack,
Mario West,
Luke Schenscher,
Thaddeus Young,
Will Bynum, and
Anthony Morrow. In back-to-back years (2008 & 2009), Hewitt also successfully recruited national top-10 high school prospects in
Iman Shumpert and
Derrick Favors. During the 2009–10 season, the Yellow Jackets played for the ACC tournament championship game as well as earning Hewitt's fifth NCAA tournament appearance at Tech. They advanced to the round of 32, losing to Ohio State. Georgia Tech then finished the 2010–11 season 13–18. On March 12, 2011, Paul Hewitt was dismissed as the head coach of the Georgia Tech after eleven seasons.
Brian Gregory was appointed as his successor, Georgia Tech's 13th men's basketball coach, on March 28, 2011.
Brian Gregory Brian Gregory, who led
Dayton to 97 victories over his last four seasons there and worked under
Tom Izzo at
Michigan State when the Spartans won the
2000 NCAA championship, was named Georgia Tech's head men's basketball coach on March 28, 2011. In their first season with Gregory at the helm, Georgia Tech finished 11–20 and 11th in the ACC while playing without a true home court while
McCamish Pavilion was under construction. Gregory only had two seasons with overall winning records and no seasons of winning records in ACC play. On March 25, 2016, after five disappointing seasons and no trips to the NCAA tournament, Georgia Tech fired Brian Gregory. He was 76–86 overall and 27–61 in ACC play. Pastner was 167–73 with four NCAA tournament bids in seven years as the head coach of
Memphis. Pastner took Tech to the NIT finals in his first season, and was that season's ACC Coach of the Year. After that season Tech was hit with NCAA violations, although most punishments would later be dropped. Because of this, Tech struggled for the next few seasons. However, Pastner ultimately led the team to their first ACC title since 1993, as well as their first NCAA tournament berth since 2010, as the Yellow Jackets defeated
Florida State to win the 2021 ACC championship. They would end up losing to
Loyola Chicago in the first round of the NCAA tournament. It is Tech's latest postseason appearance. The success wouldn’t last though, Tech parted ways with Pastner on March 10, 2023 following two disappointing seasons. He finished 109–114 in his seven years coaching the Jackets. He finished as the fourth-winningest coach in school history, behind only Hewitt, Hyder, and Cremins.
Damon Stoudamire On March 13, 2023
Damon Stoudamire was named the fifteenth coach in program history. Stoudamire came to Georgia Tech after serving as an assistant coach of the
NBA's
Boston Celtics for nearly two seasons. Before that he served as the head coach at the
University of the Pacific from 2016 to 2021. Damon Stoudamire became the first Tech coach in the Yellow Jackets’ ACC history to defeat Duke in his first try when the Yellow Jackets stunned the then seventh ranked Blue Devils 72–68 on December 2, 2023. He became the third coach in ACC history to beat Duke and North Carolina in his first year when on January 30, 2024, Tech beat #3 UNC 74–73 in front of a sold out home crowd. Stoudamire's first team finished 14–18 despite the big wins, but in his second year at the helm Tech would turn an 8–11 start into a 17–16 record at the end of the ACC Tournament. The Yellow Jackets were invited to the
2025 NIT, which marked their first postseason appearance since the 2021 ACC championship season. After the positive momentum from the 24–25 season, people hoped that Damon’s third season would see further progress. However, after starting the season 11–8, the Yellow Jackets ended their 2025–26 season with twelve straight losses, finishing 11–20 and last in the ACC. A day after the season ended, Stoudamire was fired. He had a 42–55 record at Georgia Tech.
Scott Cross ==Postseason==